John Cusack says creative control led him to graphic novel

Actor John Cusack, a longtime Hollywood leading man, has explained his pivot away from major studio films toward independent creative work, citing a desire to tell stories without corporate oversight. The 60-year-old star of "High Fidelity" and "Grosse Pointe Blank" made the comments while promoting his debut graphic novel, "Momo," at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday, July 24, 2026.

Cusack said he turned to writing and illustrating because he wanted full creative control. "I wanted to tell a story, but I didn't want to negotiate telling a story," he told Variety. "When you ask somebody to put 20 million or 30 million into a bank account for a film, they want to have an opinion and they're afraid and all that stuff." He described graphic novels as the closest medium to film, noting their cinematic nature in picking out shots.

For "Momo," Cusack collaborated solely with illustrator Ignacio Noé. He emphasized that the project was free from external editing or committee influence. "This was just like, I wrote it, and I said, 'I like the story,'" Cusack said. "Nobody edited anything I wrote or that he drew. So it's really a piece of work that was just done by two people." He added that...